Lost in the Woods
by Rhianwen
Summary: It's not surprising that she took a little longer to get there. After all, it's not the first time she's gotten lost in the woods. AlexGina, because unlike his fanpoodles, he has taste.


Lost in the Woods

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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, and I'm sure they're stunned that I can actually write a canon pairing. XD

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Summary: It's not surprising that she took longer to get there. After all, it's not the first time she's gotten lost in the woods. Alex/Gina

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It's late that day, afternoon mellowed into evening, before he can find time for a walk.

But he goes, sets off through falling dusk for the path inclining steadily into the hills, because it's almost a daily need by this point, right up there with coffee in the mornings and herb tea before bed.

There's no point in trying to unwind at the Clinic, as long as there's work left to do – and a Martha to nag him, kindly and laughingly but relentlessly, until he abandons the scant time he has now free from prescriptions and patient files, and does it.

And besides, who knows what one might find in the mountains in the gathering darkness?

Tonight, apparently, one might find a girl.

Small and slight, swathed in a prim little striped dress and apron, hem barely brushing shapely knees, white knee socks against smooth pale skin, and polished black Mary Janes. Walking in small, quick circles, frowning deeply and muttering to herself, longish pale braids swinging with each sharp turn.

She'll be running the Sanitarium, he learns once he's finished scaring her by calling gently for her attention, and waving away her flustered apology when she gives a surprised yelp and jumps a foot in the air.

He can't help but stare. At first, the half-darkness made her hair appear blonde, but with a second look, it's a pale, shimmering blue. There are no tears in those eyes, warm golden brown, amber tea behind round wire-rimmed glasses, and he's somehow very glad that she hasn't been frightened enough to cry.

Even more strangely, he finds that he's very proud of her, able to keep her head in such a scrape as being lost in the mountains at night, when he knows many a grown man who might break down.

But this slip of a girl apparently sees no gain to be found that way, and her eyes are frightened instead, and annoyed, and just a little bit embarrassed.

Which shouldn't be; even now, he can tell that those eyes were made for gentle contentment and happiness.

_So much_, he thinks hazily, _for the elusive head nurse Gina Forester being a second Martha._

Her voice sounds just like she looks, soft and sweet, but refined and very polite, as she surmises easily that _you must be the doctor_, and he laughs self-consciously as it finally occurs to him that he's still wearing his labcoat.

The same one from two weeks ago, as Martha continuously points out.

He wonders idly what Miss Forester would sound like, nagging him to do a load of laundry, and he thinks he might come to like it, once he was able to get used to taking orders from someone little more than half his age.

He's always had a weakness for a pretty girl in glasses, he recalls dimly as she gives him a sweet, beaming smile and promises him that the problem of looking _so young for a registered nurse_ will probably improve with time.

And it seems that she has a weakness too, wasn't just out for a long lonely walk through the twilight, but found herself on one when she got hopelessly lost in the mountains on an herb-gathering expedition. Ordinarily, she likes getting lost and finding her way back again, but the area is so new that everything still looks the same.

So he does the only gentlemanly thing, and offers to walk her back to the Sanitarium before the other girl, Mr. and Mrs. Gevora's daughter Dia who bolted for the stairs at first sight of him when he came over to have a look at the building, calls out a search party.

He even lets her walk first down the path, and it isn't – entirely – because of the way her hair and her fair skin seems to blend with the moonlight, or even because of the very slight sway of her hips beneath that little skirt.

But he's glad now that he did, and has no problem admitting that it's mostly because of the sweet, shy little smile she gave him, eyes huge and appealing through her glasses, as she bid good-night to _Doc—Alex._

He can't just smile now, because he's been smiling the whole way down from the mountains as he pointed out landmarks for her just in case she got lost again, so he touches her shoulder very lightly and far too briefly.

_Goodnight, Gina._

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That evening walk takes the edge off of her nervousness at starting a _brand-new job_ for a _brand-new boss_, and right from her first day with him, he finds her presence soothing and calming, and her sensible, level-headed approach to keeping him organized and happy, entirely indispensable.

Even when she begins blushing when he smiles and thanks or congratulates her, or occasionally drops something when she feels his eyes on her.

Even if she still can't bring herself to call him _Alex_, and insistently calls him _Doctor_, even on the night of the Starry Night Festival when he asked her _as a friend_ while internally crossing his fingers and rhapsodizing on the beauty of her eyes in the most beautiful starlight of the year.

Even if he's a little disappointed that after a handful of seasons, she still hasn't picked up on Martha's cue and started nagging him to change his labcoat and do his laundry.

Even if, at newly nineteen years old, she's even younger than he thought, and very definitely a little too young for thirty-four and more jaded than he would like. But she said it herself; that will change with time.

And he has plenty of that, even if he becomes occasionally impatient for the day that his Gina becomes really _his_.

As he calms his mind with assurances that everything will work itself out, she is becoming increasingly aware of another weakness in her, one that has nothing to do with her hopeless sense of direction, or her ever-weakening eyesight, or her occasional clumsiness, or her _limited worldview_, or what Dia called her _terrible self-image_.

As though all of those weren't enough to trouble her, now she's discovering her apparent weakness for handsome young authority figures with beautiful smiles and kind eyes, who unhesitatingly hire on _silly little girls_ and far overpay them for trifling amounts of work.

_Now, on top of everything else, I've turned into a silly little girl who fancies her boss._

By the time she's begun to realize what's happening, her overwhelming tendency to get turned around and lost walking in a straight line has taken over again, and she hasn't the faintest idea how to navigate her way out of this situation.

If she could _stop_ caring for him, she would.

But that's impossible, because if she doesn't even know how it happened, how can she undo it?

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It's late that day, well into evening and very nearly dark, before she can find time for a walk.

More accurately, a _run_.

But she goes, hurries through the rapidly falling darkness, up the path into the mountains, because she desperately needs to get away and hide, high up in the mountains where this whole silly mess might get left behind her, back in town.

And there's no point in trying to escape _anything _in Flowerbud Village, where everyone is a close friend of everyone, and pokes insistently into all their friends' personal affairs.

As for trying to unwind at the Sanitarium, that's how she ended up with twenty hours worth of overtime pay, when she peeked through the window facing the Clinic and saw him still hard at work by ten o clock, and went over to order a stop to it, only to end up staying to help.

And besides, maybe she'll be very, very lucky and get so lost that no one will ever be able to find her again.

But when has she ever been _very, very lu cky_?

_Yes, thank-you, Doctor, that was the idea_, she thinks with a mournful little sigh as a familiar tall, dark-haired shape clad in white glowing through the gathering night, beautiful dark-grey eyes already laughing kindly to her as he approaches, asking if she's gotten herself turned around again.

She admits that she has, and looks away, praying that the shadows are enough to hide traces of tears on trasnlucently fair skin.

His expression changes, and that hope is crushed.

Within seconds, he has her in his arms, in a soft, gentle hug, murmuring soothing words of comfort and pity that one might to a child waking up from a nightmare, he's so sorry she was frightened, and he should have come t find her hours ago, and everything's alright now because he'll take her back to town and they'll have some tea, and even the dizzying sensation of his breath at her hair can't erase the sting of being _just a little girl_ to him.

Something chokes her, part anger and part sorrow and part something else entirely.

She can't stand to be near him right now, with his soothing whisper at her ear and his hand rubbing wide circles over her back.

One more breath, and...

_Don't touch me!_

She cracks.

The tears come again, and he stares, panicked, as she goes to pieces in front of him, shoulders shaking with sobs.

She knows that he must be terrified; Gina, who doesn't cry, even when she's lost, but cries when she's found again.

She mutters an apology and snatches off her glasses to wipe her eyes, but his hand at her chin forces her gaze back to his, and he brushes at the teardrops still flowing thickly and clinging to her cheeks and lashes, with the sleeve of his coat. He doesn't _want_ an apology, he tells her quietly, he wants to know what's upset her.

He won't let her look away, so she stares defiantly back at him and says only that, even if they've been such good friends, she can't tell him about _this_.

A sigh, heavy with reluctant acceptance, because he knows how women value their privacy, except for Martha, who doesn't value _anyone's_ privacy.

"Then promise me that you'll talk it over with Dia or Ann or Ellen? I hate to see you bottle things up; you'll make yourself sick."

She flinches. That's even more unthinkable, to tell her _best friends in the world_, because she _has_, and they just don't understand why it's so terrible, why she hates herself for falling so completely for the last man she thinks she probably should.

It's better just to tell him, so maybe _he_ can explain to them why it's not something to grin and giggle and tease over.

"I...there's someone that I think I might like – _love_ – very much, and I know I shouldn't, because he hasn't got time to bother with his silly little employee's crush. And our situation makes it very...unprofessional, after I've tried so hard to be a good nurse."

"Gina. You have nothing to worry about."

She looks up, startled, at this statement, very gentle, and very serious despite the dreamy little smile creeping over his lips.

"You've been a wonderful nurse; I thought you knew that. Looking back, I don't know how Martha and I kept things together without you, when you've made everything pleasanter, more organized, and much easier." His smile becomes a grin, and she feels absurdly like laughing through tears still wet on her cheeks. "If you don't count that you have a tendency to distract your boss just by being around, and when you smile, he completely forgets where he is and what he was doing."

And now she does laugh, breathless and disbelieving, because what she can read clearly in his eyes despite the darkness is telling her very firmly that the concept of _unrequited love_ has no use here.

She drops her eyes to his knees, and she can feel herself blushing furiously.

"I...really?"

And now _he _laughs, gently and kindly and wonderingly, and cups her cheek in his palm.

"I can't believe you didn't know."

She gives one more desperately sniffle before the tears come again, this time through the laughter and out of gladness that this is really happening to her and she isn't going to wake up alone and aching with disappointment. But despite her vision blurring again, she half-throws herself at him, and the silence stretches out between them, filled with hot, damp, feverish kisses and soft breathing and murmurs of contentment.

It's hard to believe that it could have taken her so long to realize what was happening, not only his feelings, but her own.

But then, it's hardly the first time she's taken the long way around.

Not the first time she's gotten lost in the woods.

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